New Delhi, October 31: Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members of parliament belonging to the Opposition alliance Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), students, activists and members of the civil society passed a unanimous resolution seeking removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar during a public impeachment held here today. The Opposition is at the loggerheads with the top poll official of India after many irregularities in the preparation of electoral rolls in the country.

The impeachment proceedings were presided over by the former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar.

Moving the resolution, Congress president and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge listed six charges against Gyanesh Kumar and sought his immediate removal. Dropping of many electors in West Bengal and the ultimate victory of BJP in the state with huge margins has caused nationwide protests recently including street agitations by students and political parties in Delhi and other parts of the country.

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, while supporting the resolution, said that the public impeachment of Kumar by about 250 MPs from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, besides prominent civil society members, common citizens and students, was an unprecedented development which seeks to restore democracy in the country.

He said, Gyanesh Kumar should not only be impeached, but tried in a court of law for treason.

Rahul Gandhi said that the very fact that the Opposition MPs and the members of the civil society had to gather like that for the public impeachment reflected how the democracy had been subverted and sabotaged as all the constitutional institutions were shut for them. “The reason we are standing here is because we have nowhere else to go. We have no other option; every single institution is closed for us,” he said.

The senior Congress leader raised an important point about the legitimacy of the Modi government formed in 2024 vis-à-vis the deletion of more than 13 crore voters’ names after that. He pointed out that crore of voters’ names, which according to the Election Commission of India were illegal and hence were removed, may obviously have voted in the 2024 General Elections. That means, he noted, the legitimacy of the Modi government is questionable.

Gandhi said the Election Commission cannot be right on both counts. It cannot say at the same time that every seventh vote was illegal and the Modi government formed after the 2024 General Elections was legal. Or, he added, if it says the Modi government is legitimate, then the 13.2 crore voters’ names it has deleted are legal and hence their deletion is illegal.

Gandhi said, while 13.2 crore voters constitute about 15 percent of India’s electorate, the difference between the winning and losing of the 2024 General Elections was only 3 percent.

Rahul Gandhi said that Gyanesh Kumar was not going to survive as the Chief Election Commissioner for long as the Opposition has already got enough proof against him. If the BJP still continues with him after the revelations made against him, BJP’s intentions would be too clear, he added.

Expressing confidence about the united strength of the Opposition, Gandhi warned people like Gyanesh Kumar and others to beware about the power of the “political weapon”, which is directly targeted at every single person starting from Gyanesh Kumar to Prime Minister Modi, Amit Shah and others who colluded to destroy the votes of Indian people.

He said, Gyanesh Kumar may be hiding behind the institution he had sworn to protect, but he cannot hide behind it for long. “Today or tomorrow, you are going to face the people,” he told Gyanesh, adding, “because you have taken this game outside the normal ambit, and the legal framework by rigging elections, you are our first target”.

Gandhi also sounded a note of caution to Gyanesh Kumar, telling him that if he believes that immunity will save him or Modi and Shah will protect him, he must see the mood of the people across the country.

He also sent a clear message to the government, stating, “you can continue to rig the elections, you can continue to control and allow the misuse of CBI, ED and every single institution of the country, but we guarantee this is a temporary phenomenon and we guarantee you that we are not going to forget or forgive you for the assault on the voice of people”.

Earlier, moving the resolution for the impeachment of Gyanesh Kumar, Mallikarjun Kharge said that he (Gyanesh Kumar) was acting at the behest of the Prime Minister and the Home Minister and had put the people’s right to vote in danger. He also referred to the passage of a law in Parliament in 2023, providing lifetime immunity to the CEC after suspending 145 Opposition MPs. He said, even the President of the country and the Chief Justice of India do not enjoy such immunity.

The Congress president made it categorically clear that the party does not want deceased voters to be included in the electoral rolls, but only wanted the ECI to provide foolproof details of such people. He said the Modi government was using the issue of infiltrators as a pretext to cover up its own mistakes. Pointing out that the flaws were inherent in the very design of the SIR process, he added that its objective was not to add voters to the electoral rolls, but rather to exclude them. He said, as long as people like Gyanesh Kumar are at the helm of affairs, impartial elections would not be possible and the Constitution would be in danger.

Those who spoke during the impeachment motion included Harendra Singh Malik, Mehbooba Mufti, Kapil Sibal, Sagarika Ghosh, Mahua Moitra, Bajrang Manohar Sonawane, Arvind Sawant, Abhay Kushwaha, Nikhil Dey, John Brittas, Santosh Kumar, Ritu Barala, Mohammad Bashir, Sudama Prasad, Neha Bora, Nasir Aslam, Thirumavalavan, Baidyanath Ram, Yogendra Yadav, Anjali Bharadwaj, Jose K. Mani, N.K. Premachandran, Vaiko, Gauhar Raza and others.